Review

During the early 1980s, primitive home computers were presented as having almost limitless capacities.

You remember the ones: green text on a black screen with the kind of graphics that made Ceefax seem positively futuristic. Whether it was kids embroiled in high-tech nuclear war (War Games) or adolescents of a hornier persuasion manufacturing beautiful women in their bedrooms (Weird Science), computers were God-like in their powers, and with only a modicum of tech skills average schmoes the world over were capable of redefining the laws of physics.

Not content with mortal acts of cod-modernity, the writers of controversial tech-horror Evilspeak went just that little bit further. Apparently, not only were these technological relics capable of giving birth to ludicrously hot, fully-developed women, they were designed to accommodate satanic black magic, acting as a conduit for malevolent spirits looking for bloodthirsty vengeance centuries in the making. If computers were strange and alien to Reagan-era parents tasked with returning to American family values, just think what movies such as this must have done for their reputation. The future of technological advancement may have been bright, but in the movies computers were little more than a convenient plot device made infallible by a generation who understood very little about them.

The Apple II home computer: unspeakable powers.

Banned as one of the 72 ‘Video Nasties’ following the Obscene Publications Act of 1984, Evilspeak stars cult horror figure Clint Howard in an early big screen role. Though only 21 at the time, Howard was something of a veteran having spent the majority of his formative years as a star of the small screen (he even voiced the infant elephant in Disney’s 1967 adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book), but in spite of his experience he still had much to learn here, though aesthetically he’s the kind of misshapen cookie needed for a movie that sees a shy kid transformed into a harbinger of otherworldly evil.

Howard has made an impressive career off the back of his peculiar visage, his goofy aura and distinct features seemingly made for the horror genre. One look at him is enough to send shivers up anyone’s spine given the right context. In fact, the actor spoke of a real-life incident that occurred during the making of Evilspeak. Having left the set still in his bloodied costume, Howard pulled up at some traffic lights and smiled at a woman who had begun staring at him, leading her to desperately lock every door of her car. Imagine a blood-spattered Clint Howard smiling at you on a desolate road at night. I mean, can you blame her for having such a reaction?

Howard’s hair model portfolio didn’t go down too well.

Here, Howard plays bumbling military school student Stanley Coppersmith, an orphan pushed into the arms of Satan thanks to a group of unlikely bullies beset on the usual gang-led torture. More dubious are a group of teachers who promote that bullying for the good of the school soccer team, which has a rule that all players must take part in two of every four quarters, even though a soccer match actually consists of only two halves. To be fair, those responsible probably needed the back-up. When it comes to American High School movies — which is what this begins as — our protagonist’s tormentors have to be right up there with the biggest pussies ever cast in the role of bully. Not one of them looks like they could fight their way out of a wet paper bag. Though the ringleader’s penchant for sacrificing sweet little puppies is perhaps something to worry about. The things we do when we’re loaded!

While cleaning the parish cellar, Coopersmith, creatively dubbed Cooperdick, stumbles upon the resting place of a centuries-old satanic worshipper named Esteban, a seemingly endless space daubed in the kind of Gothic masonry that no one else on the campus is aware of, in spite of the fact that the quarters of the drunken janitor are right next door. When a sultry secretary steals Cooperdick’s – sorry, Coopersmith’s – book of black magic after being drawn to its alluring emblem, Coopersmith uses the school’s shiny Apple II computer to decipher the rest of the puzzle, and when his innocent puppy is ruthlessly slaughtered our goofy-looking lead is pushed a step too far, unleashing an evil that will allow him to enact vengeance on his lousy oppressors and then some.

Every year the bullies got bigger.

At the time, the primitive special effects on show were probably enough to pacify audiences, and though Coopersmith is too bumbling a character to truly invest in, this is a relatively ambitious horror outing that proves more interesting than the majority of derivative productions flooding the pre-certificate video market. It has the same old bullied kid set-up, but there’s all kinds of crazy shit going on as we near the movie’s infamous final act, not least sexpot Lynn Hancock’s death by wild boar, one of the scenes that had the film banished to commercial purgatory as moral panic ran roughshod over the industry. An extended cut of the scene, one that was purportedly even more graphic, didn’t make the final, uncut version released years later, Howard and Weston believing that the footage is likely lost forever.

Still, you would have to be pretty timid to be disturbed by a movie of Evilspeak’s cornball presentation, and compared with some of the dead-eyed, cynical slashers banned along with it, this is about as realistic as a Mexican daytime melodrama, and the only real window for offence when it comes to horror is realism, which this movie is absolutely bereft of. Of course, these were different times, and the film is fairly graphic when it finally decides to up the tempo, with brutal decapitations and still-beating heart extractions just a sample of the bloody delights on display, but ultimately the movie would offend for altogether different reasons.

Tasty!

That reason is religion. Until Evilspeak‘s rather shocking climax, you’re kind of wondering what all the fuss is about save for the movie’s abrupt opening kill. For the most part it felt like a second-rate TV drama that could just as easily have been heading towards a mawkish, apple pie resolution, but boy was I off the mark! It would be almost a quarter of a century before Evilspeak was deemed worthy of public consumption thanks to the kind of blasphemous finale that would have had Weston burnt at the stake in some quarters, with text images of the Black Mass and a series of sacrilegious practical effects that incorporate satanic rituals, religious iconography and a startling church-bound massacre instigated by an image of God himself. What on Earth were they smoking?

Still, if you’re a low-budget filmmaker looking to get noticed, nothing ruffles the feathers like a little blasphemy, and in those terms Weston procured the Holy Grail of censorship infamy.

Best Kill

Finally recruiting the help of Satan, a levitating Coopersmith hovers along the parish isles with Esteban’s sacrificial sword, striking down with such bludgeoning force that his victim’s head explodes like a watermelon.

Most Absurd Moment

After stumbling upon Coopersmith’s pet puppy, Bubba (Don Stark) and his troublesome cronies offer the poor critter up for sacrifice after following the Apple II’s plea for consecrated blood. The next day they resume college life as usual, without the slightest qualm about their prey’s secret cauldron of the occult or their gang leader’s serial killer tendencies.

Interesting Titbit

According to a 2017 interview with the movie’s star, an already balding Howard was made to pay for his own toupée by producers looking to save a buck. Talk about living the life!

Most Absurd Dialogue

Worked to the bone by the parish priest, Coopersmith is reduced to scraps when he is finally given permission to go to the canteen for dinner. Taking pity on him, canteen chef, Jake (Lenny Montana), fries him up a juicy steak, and gets to knowing a little more about the pudgy little urchin hovering around his quarters.

Jake: You sure your mother and father didn’t send you here just to get you out of the way?

Coopersmith: My mom and dad were killed in an automobile accident.

Jake: You should have told me sooner. I would have given you an extra lump of mashed potatoes.

★★★★☆

If you can get past the slow-building goofiness of the movie’s first act, Evilspeak’s outrageous finale is definitely worth sticking around for, proving a novel entry in the notorious ‘Video Nasties‘ list. If, however, you’re a fundamentalist Christian who believes that anything God-related is enough of a reason to see you banished to hell for all of eternity, I suggest you steer clear of this one. You have been warned!